Dream On

This is a short story I wrote in a couple of weeks. It’s my first fiction short-story.

I knock on the door, a shy soft knock. It slides open a fifth of the way (my math inclined brain is always doing this to me). I hear a voice in the darkness, “What is it you are looking for?”. “Sex” I answer, hesitantly, but my voice seemed firm enough, hoping my experience in there would be just as firm. “That would be 500 units”, and this time I correctly guessed it was a human behind the voice, a female, and not a bot. “Payment upfront”. I agree, and the door slides fully open, and I step into the entryway which lights up, but not too bright. Perfect.

“I’m Hui”. My guide for today. “Thank you, how do you want the payment?”. I know they can auto-deduct by voice command but I inquired anyway. “The usual”. I voice my auth for the payment of 500 units, and we walk towards the entryway exit which opens into a long corridor with plenty of doors on either side.

The second door on the left was open to a huge room with six bunks inside. Each bunk was connected via a Cat8 Ethernet cable to a central hub of some kind, I couldn’t tell. There were plenty of Linux based servers and consoles in there and a distinct hum could be heard. Four bunks were occupied which I could tell by a green light near the top of the bunk. “What do these people do?” I ask Hui. “They are content creators” she says. “Don’t you auto generate content based on your client’s brain waves? You already have them in your system.” “We do, but we still need the basic scaffolding. Do you write code with full auto-on?”. She knows I’m a coder! I grudgingly agree that the AI coding-assistant generates most of the boilerplate code but I still need to write my own code and always review what my AI coding-assistant generates. We are not near enough to trust AI completely yet. Maybe in a couple of years.

“Do they also generate the body?”, I ask. “On No”, Hui blushes. “They only generate physical structures like buildings, beds, tables, you know. And drinks and food too. Your partner’s body though will be fully generated based on what we read from your brain waves”. I’m so looking forward to this. Been saving units for more eons than I can remember to cover the cost for this day.

We approach the “sex” room. This room is for clients who wish to have a sexual experience while dreaming. That’s mostly all of us. The wait list to get a bunk in this room is usually a year. Ever since almost all of the male population regardless of age started suffering from Erectile Dysfunction with no cure in sight, this dream xp was all the rage. No one knew how it happened. People say its the chemicals in the water, our evolutionary strategy, a sign from the gods, we don’t know for sure. We can still reproduce, of course. Scientists can pluck out our sperm cells and use it for injecting into a woman via IVF or for storage. There’s just no physical intercourse. The penis refuses to harden.

Hui walks me towards my bunk. My heart rate fastens. Hey, is there anybody down there? Talk about the placebo effect. Hui smiles at me knowingly. “It happens all the time”, she blushes. She opens the top of the bunk. I look inside anxiously. I already know what to expect of course. Many of my higher-class friends have told me what the inside of a bunk looks like. Its empty.

Sensory deprivation tanks have been in use since the 1950’s. They went through a hype phase and died down quickly, after we found that pills could do much better. Lie down in water, darkness all around? Nope. Take a benzo. Drop some CBD oil under your tongue. Much easier.

But this bunk was a sensory deprivation tank on steroids. You see, to induce a dream like phase, all external stimuli to the body must be cut off.

The breakthrough came when a company calling itself Corporation IV invented a pill, which when consumed, first shuts down all external stimuli to the body, and gradually phases the client into a dream state. Many advances followed such as the ability to induce a dream of the user’s liking, exactly like a movie unfolding.

The hippocampus, situated deep inside the temporal lope of the brain has a central role in our ability to remember, dream and imagine. Corporation IV’s pills can read and write to the hippocampus. No wonder the hippocampus is often called the “flash drive” of the human brain. The real breakthrough came when the pill was crafted with software code and used AI algorithms to manipulate the thalamus, amygdala, and visual cortex. We already had loads of data from brain scans to train AI models for this.

You want to go scuba diving during a dream phase? The company’s programmers would prompt the AI models for the software algorithm, stuff it into the pill along with the corresponding synthetic brain chemicals, such as Nor-epinephrine. That’s code and data. You swallow the pill and off go scuba diving. Every detail of the dream can be pre-built using this algorithm. The color of the water, your suit (or no suit), exotic fishes. You name it. Since it’s a dream, why make it like reality? The programmers along with the content creators would carefully craft your surroundings. Of course, what you do inside your dream is completely up to you. The algorithm does not have control over your body movements, and you are free to move around as you wish.

Now since the ED apocalypse, every male wanted a sex experience. There was no limit to what the programmers and content creators could literally flesh out for you. This made Corporation IV very rich indeed, and they were now the largest and richest organization in the world.

Now I’m a coder, and a damn good one. I knew how these algorithms worked, kinda. I had a friend who worked as a coder in the company and she helped me with the stuff. It was pretty complex stuff. Apart from the code, you had to understand all the brain parts involved in dreaming. It took me many years to confidently say that I understood at least some of the workings. Now it was time for me to to experience this dream stuff myself.

“It’s time”, smiled Hui. I climb into the empty bunk. I swallow the pill Hui hands me. Slowly the bunk closes, there’s a hissing sound, and I feel the bunk fill up with some liquid. The pill dissolves quickly in my mouth.

I feel some anxiety, but it quickly vanishes. Part of the pill’s magic. I slowly find myself falling asleep. After what seems like eternity my eyes open, and everything seems blurred. The dream world around me slowly unfolds. I can feel my heart beat, my feet on the ground. It’s real! What I see around me is nothing short of a miracle. I’m in a huge hotel lobby, the most luxurious I’ve ever even imagined. People all around. Everything is so vivid! I know these people aren’t real. I mean, they aren’t from some shared dreams with people in other bunks. We haven’t got to shared dreams yet. I like that. I like to be alone. I’ve had normal dreams before, but this is on another level. This feels real. Also, you know that it is a dream. But you can’t do anything stupid like go around killing people. The pill’s algorithms has protocols, and the one I’ve swallowed is for my sexual experience, and other stuff, but I can’t do anything unlawful. That’s alright, I’m a good guy.

I look around, and see a beautiful lady waving out to me near a sleek staircase. She looks absolutely ravishing in a purple red saree. Man, these content creators know their stuff. But wait, I remember they said my partner’s design would not be part of their job. Anyway, I approach her, give her a smile. She smiles back, “Let’s go to my room?”. Huh, they don’t waste time around here. These pills and bunks cost money to run, and Corporation IV gives me only what I paid for.

I catch her hand and walk up to the first floor. Her hand is gentle and warm, and I can now feel my penis harden. Damn! That was quick. We enter her room. It’s a nice cozy room with a double bed, a table laden with food and wine, and a window out looking a country side view with hills and lakes. It’s a pretty view. “Do you want some wine?”, she asks. I grab a glass containing some cheap red wine, and climb into the bed with her. I finish my glass and throw it away.

I look into her eyes. They are dark and mysterious, and a little hazy. I gently kiss her, and she reciprocates. My heart is racing. We finish the job I came here for.

I lie down on the bed with her in my arms. It all feels so real! I kiss her again and look into her eyes. “I feel like I’ve met you before”, I say. “In a way”, she mysteriously replies. I’m puzzled. “The content creators say they don’t create your body, so you must be from some part of my memory”. “I’m not your memory, I’m you”. I look strangely at her. “You see, the pill just does not extract memories from your hippocampus and create me. It’s secretly probing your sub-conscious, and making me from you.” “I’m not from your memory, I’m you”. I’m aghast.

I realized I had just fucked myself up.